Couple puts off retirement to keep 10 children

ANDERSON - The slip-slap of children's feet hit the grass as soon as the tires crunch into this family's gravel driveway. A stranger, someone new and anxiously expected, has arrived, and these eager children cannot contain their excitement.

Three of them crowd into the car as its driver opens up the door to step out.

"Do you have any bubblegum?" the bravest of the trio asks.

As soon as they have appeared, the little ones are gone again. This time, they head for the front porch of their adopted mother's house. The bubble gum has been forgotten - for the moment.

Once inside the house, the trio is joined by another crowd of children. They look like stair steps. The youngest is 3-month-old Bryan Lee McCollum, and the oldest is 16-year-old Hayley McCollum - Bryan's mother. There are 10 children, some of them teenagers, crowded into the living room here, all of them chattering at once.

And at the center of it all - Janet Johnson.

She's a woman who is fighting to keep the young ones in a loving home together.

"This is my world," Janet says, laughing as she turns around in the midst of the group. "I think I might have the Waltons beat."

To this gaggle of children, she's "nana," or "mama." But to be more technical, as family trees go, she's grandmother, great-grandmother and great aunt. All three of her children are adults, living on their own. And this mix would be the second and third generation of children that Janet and her husband, Ronnie, are raising.

Like most, who may find themselves raising their 'second' family, the Johnsons were not expecting such a full house as they hit their 50s. Janet turned 50 in April. Ronnie is 51.

For 25 years, Janet and Ronnie have owned their own septic tank business, Johnson and Johnson Septic Tank Cleaning Service. With the money they earned, they built a five-bedroom two-story house off Lee Dobbins Road in western Anderson County and they raised their three children.

"We thought we were coming up on retirement until the opportunity came up for us to adopt these children," she said.

The opportunity - as Janet phrases it - came in the fall of 2010.

It came with a phone call from her niece. The children needed someone to raise them while she battled with an addiction to drugs. Janet was already raising five of her grandchildren, whose mother is disabled. But how can you say no to children in need of one of the most important things - parents?

For Janet, there was no way to say "no."

"When she called, I said I would do all I could to help them," Janet said. "So we went to court for them."

It didn't matter that these were children she barely knew. It didn't matter that they wouldn't recieve any money in the way of foster care assistance. Nor did it matter to her that one of them - 15-month-old R.J. Jordan - was born addicted to methamphetamines. Nor did it matter that in saying "yes" she would be doubling the size of her immediate family and putting off that retirement that she and her husband had vaguely dreamed about.

The reason none of that stuff mattered is this: Janet knew the alternative. If she said, 'no,' it would mean foster care for her great nieces.

"I've come from a broken home too," Janet said. "I didn't want them to go through that."

This Anderson County native remembers the feeling of being pulled from her parents' home when she was 6. Her father's drinking problem forced the state to separate Janet and her nine siblings.

Within a couple of years, their father stopped drinking, and they were all reunited. But when Janet was 14, troubles struck again. This time Janet's mother left the clan. And Janet, one of the older siblings in the bunch, became mom to her sisters and brothers.

So in December, the Johnsons took on these new children, giving them all space in their two-story house. All 10 of them live here now. It's not been easy as the utility bills show the strain of an instantly doubled family, and the refrigerator needs replenishing faster.

And just a week ago, she learned that her niece has had another child - a son.

"We've already called DSS (the Department of Social Services) to let them know that we'll take him when it's time," Janet said.

For all of this, there are no looks of sadness on Janet's face as she looks around the room.

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